The Sixth Circuit has agreed to review the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio’s decision to certify a class of millions of Ohio residents who may have “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, in their blood. The class includes residents who have “0.05 parts per trillion of PFOA or at least 0.05 parts per trillion of any other PFAS in their blood serum.” Plaintiff’s counsel justified the size of the class before the U.S. Court of Appeals by noting that its large size is due to the “enormous scale of the harm and damage.” The grant of CERT is… Read more

Several environmental organizations have sued the U.S. EPA in an attempt to force the agency to revise its coal ash rules to include inactive, coal ash landfills. Currently inactive, coal ash landfills are exempt from the coal combustion residuals (“CCR”) rule requirements which require monitoring and closure of CCR landfills that accept ash after October 19, 2016, existing surface impoundments, and to a limited degree, inactive CCR surface impoundments. Plaintiffs in the case allege that approximately half of the country’s CCR waste is contained in exempt landfills. The case, State-wide Organizing for Community Empowerment, et al. v. EPA, filed August… Read more

Georgia-Pacific is filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to clarify the appropriate application of CERCLA’s statute of limitation to contribution actions. In the underlying case, the U.S. District Court in Georgia Pacific, et al. v. NCR Corp., held that the three-year statute of limitation for contribution actions under Section 113 begins to run against parties who are not named in the original Consent Order with the U.S. EPA. Georgia-Pacific is seeking clarification that the three-year statute of limitations does not run against parties who are not identified as responsible parties by the U.S. EPA, and made a… Read more

The U.S. EPA is set to publish a long overdue proposed rule that would require certain facilities with above-ground chemical tanks to develop response plans for worst-case scenario spills. The “worst-case response plan requirement” will be in addition to the CWA’s older mandate for developing spill prevention rules for oil and hazardous substances, and is being hailed by state and local and local emergency planning officials as a great step forward in protecting state water and drinking water supplies. The proposed Rules, which are set to be finalized as early as next month, will require operators with bulk chemical storage… Read more

On June 30, the EPA Inspector General directed the Agency to develop a more rigorous process for screening self-disclosure of violations made to the EPA’s electronic disclosure system (eDisclosure). The Director found that the Agency lacked adequate internal controls to ensure that the EPA screening process is effective and that significant concerns, such as criminal conduct and potential imminent hazards are identified and addressed by the Office of Enforcement.  Significant concerns are ineligible for the penalty mitigation shield available for minor noncompliance issues that are voluntarily disclosed to the EPA under the eDisclosure system. Companies are advised to review the… Read more